This week will bring the long-awaited opening up of a new realm of Web addresses in which just about any word—such as dot-furniture or dot-arcticvacations—can serve as a domain name. And to some, that spells opportunity.
Beginning Thursday, the organization that oversees the Internet will start accepting applications to manage new top-level domains—the names that appear at the end of website addresses, like dot-com and dot-net.
It will be the first time in more than a decade that anyone can apply for the rights to control a slice of the broader Web marketplace, as opposed to just domains for specific types of Internet users. Only a few options, such as dot-jobs for sites catering to job seekers, have been available more recently.
Allowing a wider variety of domains to exist will create more choice on the Internet and potentially spur innovation, according to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann.
Are you finding a way to cash in?
Photo by Gilberto Stankiewicz